Climate change
From Conservapedia
Climate change is the collective term for the the alleged effects of global warming. These effects include warming temperatures, changing weather patterns, an increase in sea level and in general any climate event affected by global warming.[1]
Climate change is one of the top environmental issues, with liberals and conservatives evenly divided on whether recent global warming is more natural or man-made.
Jack M. Hollander wrote:
- The planet has warmed since the mid-1800s, but before that it cooled for more than five centuries. Cycles of warming and cooling have been part of Earth's natural climate history for millions of years. So what is the global warming debate about? It's about the proposition that human use of fossil fuels has contributed significantly to the past century's warming, and that expected future warming may have catastrophic global consequences. But hard evidence for this human contribution simply does not exist; the evidence we have is suggestive at best. Does that mean the human effects are not occurring? Not necessarily. But media coverage of global warming has been so alarmist that it fails to convey how flimsy the evidence really is. Most people don't realize that many strong statements about a human contribution to global warming are based more on politics than on science. Indeed, the climate change issue has become so highly politicized that its scientific and political aspects are now almost indistinguishable. [2]
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Environmentalism and climate change
The main contention of environmentalists like Al Gore is the argument that:
- The earth's atmosphere warmed one or two degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 Centigrade) during the 20th century.
- Most of this warming is man-made.
- The warming is likely to continue and to be harmful to human, animal and plant life.
- We must all work together to stop it by reducing emission of greenhouse gases.
Science and climate change
Jack M. Hollander wrote:
- ... climate change remains a fascinating and important scientific subject. Climate dynamics and climate history are extraordinarily complex, and despite intensive study for decades, scientists are not yet able to explain satisfactorily such basic phenomena as extreme weather events (hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts), El Nino variations, historical climate cycles, and trends of atmospheric temperatures. The scientific uncertainties about all these matters are great, and not surprisingly, competent scientists disagree in their interpretations of what is and is not known. [1]
William Happer wrote:
- The current debates about global climate change are complicated by our not understanding the physics of the sun or of the earth’s atmosphere and oceans well enough to dismiss them as major causes of climate change on the earth. Dramatic climate changes like the medieval warm period at the time of the Viking settlements of Iceland and Greenland from about a.d. 900 to 1250, and the subsequent “little ice age,” from about 1250 to 1700, which led to extinction of the Greenland settlements, were certainly not caused by manmade changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. [2]
